Little Claws
by JumpyFox
Summary: What if Tiny joined Thunderclan?
1. Prolouge

The night was calm and quiet. A gray mother cat and her litter were curled up in a brown cardboard box, lined with soft blankets just right for three young kittens. The smallest, black with one white paw and a bushy white tipped tail stirred in the bright moonlight. His mother drowsily opened her eyes to notice one of her litter had gone missing.

"Now where could he have gone?" she wondered to herself, careful to not wake the other two members of her litter as she went to look for her lost kit.

It didn't take long to find her kitten, as he was sitting on a short footrest a few feet away from where the group had been sleeping. He was gazing at the full moon with his recently opened eyes. When his mother picked him up by the scruff of his neck he protested with a tiny squeak. He wriggled a little as she settle back into the box, placing him gently down next to his two siblings.

The kitten was obviously upset his midnight exploration was cut off prematurely, but he didn't make an attempt to escape again. His mother smiled at him, reminded of the adventurous nature of his father, that had led to him going far beyond the village when he was younger. Before long the kit had dozed off and his mother was left the only one awake. She glanced at him one last time before closing her eyes.

 _You'll be a brave adventurer too, someday, my little Tiny…_


	2. Chapter 1: Lionheart gets a Baby

Lionheart and Dappletail sat at the entrance to the camp. The crescent moon was rising quietly over the dark horizon, and except for the crickets trilling, and the sound of a few cats heading off to their dens, the forest was dead quiet.

A good time had passed and the moon was completely above the horizon before Lionheart heard a sound out in the darkness. Somewhere far off in the forest there was a quiet ringing sound. His ears perked up trying to find the faint sound, but it was too far away to accurately detect its source.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered to Dappletail.

"Hear what?" She yawned obviously disliking her late night guard duty.

"That tingling sound! Be quiet and listen." he murmured, straining his ears.

"Well, you were the one talking…" She grumbled.

They listened for a few minutes, but the sound did not repeat. The forest was once again as silent as it had been for the majority of the night. Lionheart was just about to relegate the noise to his imagination when another noise began. It was a pitiful, mournful, sound that made the fur on Lionheart's back stand up by its sheer eeriness. Dappletail was listening now.

"It sounds like a kit!" She whispered to her partner.

Lionheart stood up. "I'm going to see what it is, you stay here."

"I've been a warrior longer than you." She muttered to no one since Lionheart had already trotted off into the dark woods.

Lionheart kept up a brisk pace as he searched the woods for the source of the wailing. He had to stop a couple times when the noise stopped but eventually focused on an old fallen tree not far from the sandy hollow. He crept up on the decaying oak, and then he saw the source of the mysterious noises.

A lone black kitten with a single white paw had caught itself by its collar on one of the tree's branches. He struggled to break free but only succeeded in jingling the bell. His attempts at freedom thwarted again, he began to wail pathetically. When he saw Lionheart approaching he hissed.

"Hey there," Lionheart said gently, trying not to scare the kit, "Are you lost?"

The kitten became more frantic to escape from the tree branch, tugging with all its might.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you." His voice had a nervous lilt to it. It would definitely be a bad thing if the kit ran away into the woods, he would be perfect prey for a hungry fox or owl.

The kitten finally succeeded in its attempt to free itself from the tree, as it finally snapped the thin branch from the rest of the enormous plant. His victory was short, however, as Lionheart quickly scooped him up.

"Lemme go! Lemme go! I'll getchu!" the little cat yowled, flailing wildly. Lionheart did not respond, as it would be impossible when he was holding the scruff of a hurricane of a kitten in his jaws. He padded off into the woods, back to the worried she-cat that was waiting for him.


	3. Chapter 2: Tiny becomes a detective

Tiny blinked awake and looked blearily around in the bright morning sunlight. His first thought was that his nest smelled different than usual. It still retained its usual milky scent but now he also could smell the earth and strange cats. When his vision cleared he noticed that he was definitely not in his nest. Instead, he was in a nest made of moss next to two strange kittens who were much larger than him and the cat he thought was his mother was actually a dark brown she-cat he had never seen before.

Tiny squeaked in surprise at the unfamiliar cats and quickly backed out of the nest. His retreat did not last very long as it was halted by the fluffy body of another strange. Tiny whipped around to see two strange kittens looking at him. Too scared and disorganized to mount an attack he crouched into the smallest most pathetic ball of fluff he could manage.

"I'm sorry!" he whimpered, "I don't know how I got here! I'll leave right now!"

The two kittens looked at each other for a brief moment before they started to giggle. Tiny was put off by their surprisingly laid back attitude to finding a strange kitten in their nest which snapped him out of his panic.

"What's so funny?" he demanded quickly returning to his paws.

"Nothing," the large tabby kit he had bumped into replied between giggles, "It's just you _really_ are a kittypet aren't you? It's gonna be weird having a kittypet for a denmate!"

"Yeah," the second kit, a white one, replied. "I was really surprised when Sunstar asked Robinwing to take care of you. I didn't believe it, but I guess it's true!"

Tiny stopped to think about this. He thought back to last night trying to remember what had occurred. Since the housefolk were moving things around in the house during the day he and his siblings had gone out into the yard to escape the commotion. He had found a hole in the fence, and the prospect of escaping Socks' and Ruby's teasing had compelled him to escape into the woods beyond the fence. He had made it a good distance into the woods before he noticed the sun dipping below the horizon.

He then realized that he was completely lost so he had chosen a random direction to head off to hoping that he could find some friendly housecat to direct him home. Eventually he managed to get himself stuck on the branch of an old tree. After realizing that he couldn't get himself loose he had called for help in the hope that someone would rescue him. Then a large golden cat had-

"Psst, Tigerkit, whatcha think he's thinkin?" the white kit asked his friend.

"Prob'ly wondering who's gonna feed him his kitty pellets now," the larger one replied.

"I am trying to figure out how I got here and where here is!" Tiny snapped frustrated at having his thoughts so rudely interrupted.

"Oooh! I can tell you where you are!" The smaller kitten replied suddenly perking up.

"Where?" Tiny asked eager to figure out his location.

Then, to this black kitten's dismay, the white kit romped behind him and began to push him towards the exit, causing the tiny cat he was shoving to squeak in protest.

"I'll show ya! I've always wanted a little kit to show around camp!" he yowled happily. "Don't worry!" he replied to Tiny's protests "It'll be fun! I'm Whitekit, by the way!"


	4. Chapter 3: Bluefur ignores her Nephew

When Whitekit finally stopped shoving him, Tiny finally had a chance to survey the camp. The sight of so many cats left him awestruck. He would never have believed so many cats could live without housefolk. Before he had much time to take in his surroundings Whitekit let out an excited squeak.

"Oh! Bluefur!" he yowled before bouncing off, apparently after the cat he had called out for.

Not wanting to be left behind, Tiny dashed after the white ball of energy. Tigerkit followed at an obviously unhurried pace. Whitekit stopped his charge at a blue she-cat who was sharing a meal with a silver tom, before Whitekit barreled up to her. He had already begun to excitedly chatter at the two cats by the time Tiny, who was gasping for air, finally caught up.

"… _**And I don't know his name because he hasn't told me but he's pretty okay for a kittypet at least what I thought a kittypet would be like and he has this thing on his neck that makes a lot of noise but- oh! Here he is now say hi to Bluefur she's my aunt and she's supercool and a great warrior say hi!**_ "

Tiny looked at the two cats that sat before him. He had never realized that such fierce looking cats ever existed. His siblings had teased him about how the forest cats would eat him up, and now that he was right before a pair of them that warning became a very real possibility in Tiny's mind.

"Um," he squeaked, cowed, "I'm Tiny."

"Ah." Said the silver tom, "You're the kit that Lionheart found. Sunstar will be glad to know you're awake. Could you tell him, Bluefur?"

"Of course, Featherwhisker." The she-cat got up, ignoring Whitekit's disappointed mews.

She headed off to a rock that was covered in long strings of lichen. She paused at the entrance before ducking under the curtain that the plant formed. Tiny watched curiously after her before Featherwhisker spoke again.

"It's good to see you haven't sustained any injuries from your journey."

"Uh-uh." Tiny mumbled subtly moving so that he put Tigerkit, who had joined them earlier, somewhat between him and the strange cat. "So, uh, who is Sunstar?"

"He-" Whitekit began.

"He's the leader of Thunderclan!" Tigerkit chirped, cutting him off. "He has nine lives and he's super strong! I wanna be like him someday! Oooh! There he is now!"

Tiny flipped around to see a large ginger tom padding over towards him. The leader of Thunderclan reminded him of the stories he had heard of giant lion cats that lived before the cats in twoleg place. Looking at him Tiny could easily believe that Sunstar was one of these great cats. Before long Tiny was crouching before the leader of the wild forest cats he had often be frightened with stories of.


	5. Chapter 4: It isn't Thistleclaw's fault

Tiny gazed up at Sunstar. The tom's bright yellow gaze met his for a moment before he rumbled "So, you're the kitten Lionheart found."

Unable to speak the little cat nodded up at the golden warrior, who turned to the gray tabby next to him.

"Have the patrols returned yet?"

"No, they haven't. They should be returning shortly."

Sunstar nodded before turning back to Tiny. He crouched down to look the kitten in the eye. "Could you tell us how you got here, little one?"

Tiny gulped before replying. "Um. I went into the forest 'cause my twolegs were moving stuff. My house is right on the edge of the forest so I went exploring and I wandered around for a little before I-I got stuck on a tree branch. Then that cat found me."

Sunstar considered this for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something but then a group of cats came through the opening in the bramble wall. They came over to the small group of cats that had congregated in the clearing. At Sunstar's request the leader, a dark tom with a white face told what they had found out.

"We went to the edge of the forest where we met this kittypet. She told us that there had been a queen who had a litter a few moons ago. We asked her where that cat lived, but she said that the twolegs had packed up their things and left yesterday. I asked if there were any other cats that had kits but she said no."

Tiny was devastated. He had just gone off to take a stroll in the woods but now this forest cat had told him that his family had up and left while he was gone. While the black kitten was still taking in the news of this development Sunstar pressed the tom for more details.

"They just left? They didn't come back to look or anything?"

"As far as the Kittypet knew at least. She said the twolegs looked for a little at night but then they left in an awful big hurry."

Sunstar looked down at the kitten, who looked smaller than ever before. "I guess you'll be staying with us for a while."


End file.
